Kites.

Yesterday, windbourne and I went kite-flying. We got rained out the last time we were planning on going, and the silly store I stopped at didn't have any kite string anyway. But yesterday went just perfectly.

I had a pair of kites that had been sitting lonely and unused in the back of my closet for so long I don't even remember where I got them, and they both worked just fine. We assembled them in the sheltered area of Gasworks Park, taking a moment aside to stare at the cat that was meowling up in the rafters, and talking to the dreadlocked young man who had already "rescued" it three times. We decided it must want to be up there, despite the sounds it was making, and would come down when it was ready.

The kite-flying was ridiculously effortless. I've never managed to get a kite in the air so easily before -- all I had to do was take it to the top of the hill and let go.

There were rainclouds in the distance, but just enough sun reaching us to offset the bitingly cold wind. Ahna kept reeling her kite in, seeing how little string she could give it and still keep it in the air, and then letting it go again; I just let mine climb out to the end of its string and stay there as long as it wanted. Almost, at least. I think I could possibly have stayed at the top of that hill forever, watching it, hearing it flutter and shake from impossibly far away.

I bought her lunch before, she bought me chocolate afterward, and then we went and looked at books together until I had to go to work. It was, in short, a perfect afternoon -- the time spent with her as effortless as kites.